INDIGENOUS HEALTH

Question 1

GENERAL FACTS

Answer 1

They arrived 65 thousand years ago

*Low incomes, poor housing conditions and lack of appropriate knowledge continue to affect the health of aboriginal adults and children.
• the life expectancy of indigenous people is estimated to be approx. 10 years lower than of the total Australian population.
• Intimate &spiritual relationships with the land and their “connections to the country”

Elders in Aboriginal communities are: caretakers and keepers of cultural knowledge/ custodians of culture and country

Question 2

Overt racism means:

Answer 2

deliberate acts of intolerance or hatred expressed or shown publicly in an obvious way.

Question 3

Covert racism means:

Answer 3

expressing racist ideas, attitudes or beliefs in subtle or hidden ways

Question 4

Systemic racism means:

Answer 4

unfair treatment of people through rules, policies and procedures by organisations.

Question 5

What policy has been developed to ensure that Aboriginal communities are able to choose the best way to meet social, cultural and economic needs?

Answer 5

Self- determination.

Question 6

DETERMINANTS OF ABORIGINALS HEALTH

Answer 6

1) Cultural lost: languages
2) Social gradient: history, disease institutional racism, health inequality, and marginalisation.
3) Colonisation: aboriginals were healthier than non-aboriginals- used to live longer.
* Introduction to new diseases: smallpox STDS
* Social disruption, loss of land and violence
* health policy and services virtually non-existent for indigenous Aus.
* European settlement since 1788 was characterised by the dispossession of over 4000 million hectors of land.

Real determinants of aboriginals health: mental illness, diet & nutrition, broken spirits, identity lack, violence, teenage pregnancy…etc